RUMFORD — In about three hours on Saturday morning, crews from Nicols Bros. Logging Inc. of Rumford and a Rumford Public Works crew spanned the Bean Brook washout on Swain Road with a logging bridge.
Jim Nicols of Nicols Bros. loaned the bridge until the town could repair the damage wrought last Sunday by flooding from Tropical Storm Irene.
“In modern-day language, it’s ‘sweet,’ right, to see that go in?” Rumford Town Manager Carlo Puiia told Nicols as they watched crewmen apply finishing touches.
Afterward, Nicols said the bridge wasn’t being used this summer by the company he and his brothers own, so he offered it to the town after learning about the washout of recently installed culverts.
“We didn’t have plans for it this summer, so somebody might as well use it and put it to good use,” Nicols said.
The town crew prepped the site Friday, working late to complete the work prior to Labor Day weekend.
Several crewmen said they’d work Saturday morning on the bridge installation and repair washed-out shoulders on Swain Road, Puiia said.
They were ready at 6 a.m. Saturday when Nicols and his crew drove the 46-foot-long bridge in on a flatbed trailer during a rain shower.
Puiia said the town crew used two excavators and logging chains to drag the bridge into place.
Then it was a matter of aligning it and placing pins through the deck center and into the span’s folding wings on either end to prevent any movement, Puiia said.
Center sections were carried and lowered into place on the deck.
Town crewman Dale Roberts, using an excavator, and Bob Bradley, using a bucket loader, dumped dirt into place at either end of the span and tamped it down with front wheels.
A town crewman used a street sweeper to remove excess dirt from Swain Road and the bridge decking.
Within minutes, drivers and walkers began using the crossing to get into town after Swain Road resident John Martin walked across, extending a hand to thank Nicols.
“Thank you very much,” he said as he and Nicols shook hands.
“The town crew and everybody did an excellent job,” Martin said. “Jim Nicols, we cannot thank him enough.”
Martin later said that when the road washed out, it took him 17 minutes to drive into town on the damaged but passable Isthmus Road. He lives at 336 Swain Road.
From where Isthmus Road and upper Swain Road connect, it’s 8 miles one way to Route 120, and another few miles into town. It’s about a mile without the washout.
He said he had to drive into town six times Friday and watched the needle drop on the gas gauge in his truck.
Bill Morse of 388 Swain Road said he had been traveling back and forth because his father’s in the hospital.
“Yesterday, we had both vehicles out and we traveled all the way around and I went down and got my aunts and took them to see my father, and it’s just great now that we can go back into town the short way,” Morse said.
On the other side of the bridge, Ron Dayon of 324 Swain Road said he was glad to see traffic resuming.
“I’m sure they’re going to really appreciate what Jim did,” he said. “I’m sure it means a lot to everybody in the area.”
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- While installing a temporary bridge on Saturday morning at the Bean Brook washout on Swain Road, Rumford Public Works crewman Troy Duguay, left, and Mike Miller and Jim Nicols of Nicols Bros. Logging Inc. of Rumford, check the alignment of bridge parts. Public Works excavator operators Dale Roberts, not shown at left, and Buddy Tidswell, at right, keep the tension.
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- Rumford Public Works crewman Dale Roberts, left, and Ben Sarle of Nicols Bros. Logging Inc. of Rumford, lower a bridge center section into place during work Saturday to install a temporary logging bridge over last Sunday’s Bean Brook washout on Swain Road.
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- Ray Broomhall, right, of Mexico, and Swain Road resident John Martin of Rumford, holding the umbrella, watch work Saturday to install a logging bridge at the Bean Brook washout of Swain Road. Rumford Public Works crewman Buddy Tidswell awaits his next task in the excavator.
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- During Saturday’s bridge installation on Swain Road, Jim Nicols, co-owner of Nicols Bros. Logging Inc. of Rumford, checks the level of a logging span, the use of which he loaned to Rumford until the town could repair the section that was destroyed last Sunday during Tropical Storm Irene flooding.
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- During work on Saturday to install a temporary logging bridge at the Bean Brook washout of Swain Road in Rumford, Jim Nicols, right, applies a chain to the bridge prior to attaching it to an excavator bucket used to lift and align the bridge. Moving to help at left are Mike Miller of Nicols Bros. Logging Inc. and Rumford Public Works crewman Troy Duguay.
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- Rumford Town Manager Carlo Puiia moves logging chains out of the work zone at Saturday morning’s project by Public Works crewmen and a Nicols Bros. Logging Inc. crew to install a temporary logging bridge at the Bean Brook washout on Swain Road.
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- While Rumford Public Works bucket-loader driver Bob Bradley moves a Jersey barrier into place on Saturday on Swain Road, a fellow crewman aligns it with another barrier to keep traffic away from a drop into Bean Brook.
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